


I Get This Fever Feeling from Nobody Else

by innie



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: AU, Multi, but Merlin/Eggsy is the main one, other relationships pop up, unconventionalcourtship challenge (Harlequin/Mills&Boon)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:51:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/pseuds/innie
Summary: Browsing the lists over at unconventionalcourtship,  I was accidentally inspired by a double-decker summary, because apparently I'm easily confused.SEDUCING REILLY by MAUREEN CHILDThe Tempting Mrs ReillyBrian Reilly was a man on the edge. It had been two long weeks since he and his brothers had made the bet, before Tina Coretti Reilly turned up on his doorstep. And now that his beautiful ex-wife was within arm's reach again, he didn't know how he'd survive! Because Tina wanted a baby. Brian's baby.Whatever Reilly Wants…For two years Connor had been coming to Emma Jacobsen's shop, she'd listened to him talk about this woman and that one. She'd thought their friendship was special. Until he admitted how 'safe' and 'comfortable' he felt around her, how he'd laughed at his brother. Well, war was declared! She was going to show her 'pal' just how much of a threat she could be to his chastity!This fic uses the chastity challenge, the unlikely suitor winning the prize, and the bonds of brotherhood and family.  Plus Merlin having had it up to here, Eggsy being lovely, Percival being magnificent, and some last-minute romances!





	I Get This Fever Feeling from Nobody Else

**Author's Note:**

> Since the point of the challenge is cheese, I decided to wallow in it for the title too: it's a lyric from Billy Ocean's "Loverboy" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmhjXEkI5Lg). Oh yes. Wow, that video is a riot! If you're looking for ersatz _Star Wars_ imagery, look no further. 
> 
> (Though that's not the song that Eggsy sings in the fic; he sings "Beggin'" by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgmyQFFQjo. I really enjoyed imagining him singing "I'm tryin' so hard to be your man" in particular. Sweet little Egg!)
> 
> Kindly Britpicked by my fantastic friend and hostess [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Lear/profile)[](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Lear)**Kate_Lear** , though I tinkered with it after she made her suggestions.
> 
> This story came out of nowhere, completely eclipsing the Harry/Eggsy & Merlin/Percival story I meant to write for this challenge. That one - based on summary #167: Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect by Jessica Hart - is still happening, but maybe not all that soon. We'll see.

"Knights," Merlin says, clipboard in hand, as he enters the common room. Not one man in the room is acting his age or, it must be admitted, even listening to him though he holds their lives in the palm of his hand on a daily fucking basis.

"Agents," he tries valiantly. Sort of. Wankers, one and all, from Harry and James engaging in some sort of high-stakes darts-tournament-slash-drinking-game to Philip wholly and tongue-poking-outingly absorbed in the latest cipher from his arch-nemesis (as he rather grandly put it, though he could have just asked and Merlin would have cracked it in under ten minutes, as he had all the rest, _without_ all of Philip's pained grunts of cogitation). Nigel, meanwhile, is engaged in a nap so hearty his snoring is making the chandelier quiver. _These_ are the laddish, caddish imbeciles to whom he has pledged his mind's best years. 

"Excuse me," he hears over his shoulder, and he steps aside, putting his back to the doorjamb for the only one of the blasted lot worth his efforts. Rowan - Percival by title - enters the common room but immediately pivots to rest a shoulder on the opposite doorjamb. Merlin likes that they are of a height, can converse civilly without any neck strain. "I do apologise for being late for your announcement," Percival says in his warmly formal way.

"I'm two seconds away from whistling like they do in New York for a cabbie," Merlin says. "Can't catch this lot's attention in any other way." No other way that he'll permit himself, is what he should say, because he has fantasised far too often about tweaking some of the technology he crafts for these bastards so that he can harness their brawn and he and his machines can rule the earth.

Rowan clears his throat, delicately, and somehow that slight sound is enough to halt Lancelot and Galahad in their noisy tracks, and the calm ripples through the room. Bless Rowan and his children and his children's children, even unto the seventh generation.

"There are two matters for your attention," Merlin says when all of the conscious knights are looking his way and Nigel has been poked so that his respiration is more silent than stertorous. "First, the Servery is now officially closed and will remain so for several weeks while it undergoes renovations." Vetting the workers doing the labour had itself been a chore of many weeks, and that wasn't even taking into account the so-called bright ideas this supposed cream of the crop interrupted his daily work to share; Galahad still has a gleam in his eye that says he hasn't given up on refashioning the acoustics to enable whispering walls that would take budding traitors unawares. Clearly the lot of them had been dropped on their heads as babies by shiftless nannies and disinterested parents.

"I will be making alternative arrangements for catering shortly," he assures them. He'll buy out the £1 sandwiches section of Sainsbury's for tomorrow's lunch while vetting the delivery people from nearby establishments. "The second matter is a bit more delicate," he continues. The knights - with the exception of Rowan, who, judging by the pleasant furrow in his brow, looks like he's making a mental note about something or the other - lean in, intrigued, and Merlin hides a satisfied smile by coughing into his fist.

"A Kingsman regulation that has been on the books since our founding, never repealed but also apparently never remembered, has been brought to my attention." He and Nimue had laughed so heartily at the words that she'd actually squeaked, and then she'd had to pound his back when he choked at the noise. "The regulation states that 'a Kingsman shall live chastely, offering insult to none and with purity in his heart. An object of adoration may be wooed but the Kingsman shall not pursue his own physical gratification prior to acceptance of troth.'" 

He's thoroughly enjoying the gobsmacked look on all the faces - even Nigel's, which might mean he's in a coma rather than sleep, if he's hearing these words. "Arthur's directive is that this regulation is as valid as any other and will be enforced immediately." Of course it was; Chester King is a prematurely aged bitter old crab who married for money and resents the better-looking agents for relentlessly capitalising on their suavity. Merlin adds, almost as an aside, "Though it is not spelled out explicitly, we will of course waive this regulation in the eventuality of a honeypot mission." He makes a show of frowning down at his clipboard, aware that his appreciation for this moment - he is holding the knights' attention effortlessly and it would be possible to hear a pin drop, were there any actual tailors on the premises - is bordering on the obscene. "Not that there _are_ any coming up or in process."

After he's done, there's the respite of a brief, shocked silence and then the common room explodes into a roar of noise.

*

It's been not even twenty-four hours since he passed along Arthur's decree, and the knights' braying about their service to the world and how shabbily they're being repaid has descended into mindless repetition. Merlin is frankly too exhausted to follow through on his vow to have the bollocks of the first so-called gentleman to float the idea of a Kingsman harem. His spirit is very willing but his flesh is weak.

"Merlin," Galahad calls across the common room. 

"Aye?" he responds, not yet lifting his eyes from the text scrolling by on his screen. He does not need to look to know that Galahad is doing a ten-out-of-ten insouciant lean using his billiards cue as a prop, the fucking peacock.

"How exactly did Arthur learn of this obscure regulation? Surely you're not going to suggest he's actually _reading_ up in his poky old office." If Galahad is implying that Arthur is barely literate, Merlin's not about to dispute the point. Nor is he going to give Nimue's game away.

"Not like he's got anything better to do when he goes home at night," says the inevitable Lancelot, Galahad's most fervent barnacle. "There's a distinct Arctic chill to the missus."

That particular bit of rudeness is enough to get Galahad to stop looking curiously at Merlin, for which he's thankful, and to focus on Lancelot, who shrugs in a way that he clearly hopes is charming and carefree but really only makes him look like the arse he is.

Merlin frowns down at his tablet, unable to remember if he'd requested a sandwich for himself when he put in the lunch order from Rowan's sister's shop. It will be good to meet Roxanne, put a face to the name that pops up in Rowan's proud conversations. Merlin groans when he remembers that Roxanne was a debutante before she enlisted in the Royal Marines, because setting a beautiful woman in the midst of all of these randy, entitled idiots is a blunder roughly on the order of Napoleon's assumption he could make it through a Russian winter by thinking warm thoughts.

"What was that, Merlin?" Lancelot is a pest of the first water.

"Probably realising that he's technically a Kingsman too, so this damnable edict applies to him as well," Galahad says. The other knights clustered in the common room - wastes of space, one and all, they should be honing their skills, not pickling their livers - as usual gather round when the senior knight speaks so authoritatively. Galahad has pulled the wool most thoroughly over all their eyes. Never mind that half of them would let him blindfold them anyway.

"All that Merlin ever wants to touch are his blasted computers." Lancelot dismisses that theory with an arsey laugh that absolutely does not get under Merlin's skin.

Merlin does touch his tablet again, scrolling once more to get to the end of the report. He needs to get back to the R&D lab soon, given how carelessly the knights burn through all the tech with which he supplies them. He has to remember, even when he's in the lab and alive with the rush of inspiration, that they're aristocrats, born with the expectation that their money will get them more of whatever they want; they are fundamentally and adamantly uninclined to treasure or safeguard anything but their own lily-white hides. 

He does not want Roxanne walking into such a lion's den, trained in self-defence though she once was, but there's little he can do about it now. Rowan would not send his beloved sister in without at least a word of warning, surely.

"Food's here," Nimue's voice says into his ear, courtesy of his specs, though why she sounds so pleased is beyond him, unless his order for her - chicken with coriander mayonnaise on a granary bloomer - is exactly what she's been craving. "Sending the delivery to the common room, sir."

She never calls him _sir_. He frowns down at his tablet, confused, and that's when the doors to the common room open and the most beautiful man he's ever seen is coming through them with a basket and a smile. All he needs is a little red hood, because Merlin is suddenly feeling lupine enough to eat him up.

"Hiya, guv," the man says, friendly tone making the musical tenor of his voice even more appealing, not that he needed additional charms on top of the ones Merlin can see very well. "Got an order for Merlin here," he continues, setting his basket on the table at Merlin's elbow and making the beaded bracelet on his wrist slip down a few centimetres. This close, Merlin can smell him, the scents of herbs lingering on his skin.

"Lessee, got a roast beef with horseradish for Galahad" - Harry wastes no time in virtually vaulting to the man's side to claim his lunch and ensure that the lad gets an eyeful of his handsome face and lean form - "an' a ham and emmental on a croissant for Lancelot" - now it's James's turn to elbow his way to the front of the crowd of nincompoops that Merlin has sworn, stupidly, to safeguard. "Chicken and sweetcorn for Lamorak, spicy tuna for Bors, chicken and avocado for Bedivere, tuna and olives for Tristan, bacon and egg for Kay, sausage roll for Gawain, pepper prawn for Geraint, an' smoked salmon for Gareth." Merlin's trying to figure out the funny look on the lad's face as he speaks the last name and so realises a beat later that he did indeed forget to mark his own choice on the online form.

"Merlin, guv," the man says, and Merlin draws his eyes away from the predatory semicircle of knights clustering insistently close to the lad to see the loveliest smile aimed his way, "don't break my heart and tell me you're skipping meals. Made this for you."

Ravenous though he is, the beautiful sandwich can't hold a candle to the fucking gorgeous lad holding it out to him. Merlin still doesn't know the man's name, but he knows that his fingers are warm when they brush his own. He will not think about the green of the lad's eyes, halfway between moss and ocean, or the razor edge of his jaw, or the thousand and one beauty marks and freckles adorning the skin left bare by his faded black polo shirt; that way madness lies.

"Thank you, lad," is as much eloquence as he can manage. The echoing chorus of thanks from the knights, still hovering around the lad and his basket like particularly pestilential vultures, startles him and the man too, who blinks his confusion very attractively.

"Weren't me, gents. Merlin did all of the ordering, so thank him. Or just order from us again sometime soon if you really wanna say thanks." Another grin and he's back through the doors, leaving Merlin with the view of a superlative arse - the platonic ideal of arses, surely - as he goes. 

When Merlin finally rips his gaze away from the empty doorway, it's to find that he's squeezed nearly all the filling out of his poor little sandwich. One glance around the common room is enough to tell him that his sandwich isn't the only one to have suffered.

"Merlin," he hears through his earpiece, "come back here and eat your lunch in peace." Gathering his belongings and what he can salvage of his dignity - not that a single knight is paying him any mind - he retreats to his office where Nimue is waiting.

Beyond looking gobsmacked by the vision that had said his code name so sweetly, his reflection in the wall of monitors shows him the same old face he's had decades to be disappointed by: same useless eyes hidden behind spectacles thick enough to restore his vision, same beaky nose, same crooked tooth, same sallow skin because he doesn't see enough sunlight. Nothing that allows him to read any ulterior motive into the lad's friendliness.

Nimue, meanwhile, looks torn between triumph and doubt. "Laura Jean," he says, tossing his misshapen sandwich next to his keyboard, "what have you done now?"

"Nothing, Merlin," she promises, eyes wide until they close in delight as she takes another bite of her lunch. "I'll admit, I wasn't expecting the knights to be quite so . . . flexible in their desires" - Merlin labours under no delusions about the agents' opportunistic depravity, but he's still taken aback by how little time it took them to feel deprived - "but that boy was beautiful, there's no denying."

Beautiful, and young, and talented; Merlin's first bite of his gently reshaped sandwich is a revelation. The flavours of halloumi, green apple, rocket, and caramelised onion burst in his mouth, the subtleties of the herb bread hitting him a moment later. "Sweet Christ," he says, mouth still full.

Nimue wrinkles her nose at him but has no room to talk, what with the way she's hoovering up the rest of her sandwich like she's expecting a prize for being a member of the clean-plate club. "What I want to know," she says, "is why the code names didn't faze him in the slightest. It is _not_ normal to say 'Galahad' and have a grown man come bounding over instead of a puppy with its tongue hanging out." He notices she said _grown man_ and not _functional adult_ , which only proves for the thousandth time that she's the ideal second-in-command for him, as she's learnt how low a bar the knights require. Beyond that, it's still a fair point - Merlin would have expected Rowan to tell his sister about Kingsman but keep schtum in front of her employees - but before he can tell her that the sandwich shop was recommended by Percival, she continues, "Though who _wouldn't_ have leapt to impress that boy."

*

"Merlin," Rowan says, sounding as well-rested as he usually does after his shifts in the shop, "I hope Roxy proved satisfactory?"

An unpleasant sip of his tea tells Merlin he can safely take a break now, as he's been working long enough that it's gone stone cold. He saves and closes all of his plans for zip ties that can also collect and store bioinformatics before swivelling around to talk to Percival.

"I didn't get a chance to meet the lass, as she sent a young man in her stead, but the food he brought was above reproach."

"Ah, Eggsy," Rowan says, smiling fondly. "Good, I've wanted to introduce him to you too."

_Eggsy_ is the moniker by which that Adonis goes? He's in no position to judge, as not one person living within four hundred miles knows his proper name, but still . . . Eggsy. It has the virtue of being unexpected, at least. "Why did you want us to meet?" Please let it not be that Rowan could no more resist Eggsy's charms than he could, and in his successful courtship allows himself to show off the beloved he has won.

"You're the only Kingsman I'd want to meet my sister and her best friend," Rowan says, leaning in to confide. "He's had a very rough go of it for far too long, and it's good that Roxy was able to convince him to step outside the shop with all that's going on just now. And this agency, for all its flaws, well, it's just the type of place to impress a lad who'd enlisted in the Marines and had to quit halfway through training to take care of his mother."

As if Eggsy weren't already appealing enough, this personal history is tugging at Merlin's heartstrings. He hasn't seen his own mum in far too long - Kingsman keeps his schedule packed to the point of insanity - and he misses her terrible tea and proud smiles with a constant ache. "That's where he met Roxanne, aye?"

Rowan nods, evidently enjoying this reminiscing. "From her telling of it, he was a lock for the King's Badge, and Eggsy always insists that she was the one who was top of the class. Even after he left, he scraped together care packages to send her, and she asked me to look in on him from time to time."

Eggsy sounds like a fucking paragon, and none of what Rowan is saying is necessarily platonic. There's no graceful way to ask, and it's unpleasantly disconcerting to realise that there might be topics he can't broach with Percival; he’s never considered that possibility before. All he can do is pull up Badge Bakery's website and place another order for tomorrow's lunch.

*

Why he does this to himself, he'll never know, but he spends the morning once again in the common room with the knights who are neither on a mission nor out of the country. Bloody good thing that it's a reduced number, too, because if he had to cope with the hologram knights as well as the in-person pillocks, he'd - as Nimue would say - shit a brick.

Usually it's a toss-up as to which he finds more fucking irritating, the thought-free content of the knights' chatter amongst themselves or their aristocratic drawls that stretch the words out unbearably, but today there's a clear winner. The blue ribbon has to go to the fact that they're all discussing Eggsy, not as the rightful eighth wonder of the world, but simply, _crudely_ , as a way to circumvent the regulation Nimue had dug up.

How they even know that Eggsy might be arriving imminently - or how they know he's placed another order with Badge Bakery - is beyond him, as he's never been predictable; perhaps some of the knights read into Eggsy's charming courtesy toward him and made their assumption. In any case, it's by no means certain who will deliver their lunch, because he refrained from requesting Eggsy as the delivery person, but only by the skin of his teeth. This might all very well be moot. Eggsy might never grace Kingsman again.

"Who has the rule verbatim?" Bors is asking desperately. Given the level of intelligence he routinely displays, Merlin's surprised each morning that Philip has managed to dress himself, so it's no wonder that he can't remember a few lines told to him two days earlier.

"It's not about the letter of the law, but rather the spirit," Galahad says authoritatively, shooting his cuffs like a wanker. No, not _like_ a wanker, but _because_ he's a wanker; Merlin pauses, then concedes that the senior knight's point is fair and should actually steer the lot of them away from Eggsy. He magnanimously forgives Galahad for his excessively beautiful suit, mirror-shine oxfords, and perfect and upstanding pocket square. There is, of course, no forgiving Harry for that movie-star handsomeness he flaunts, uses, and maintains with pinpoint precision.

Only Lancelot in his fucking wretched mustard-yellow three-piece suit is there to herd his too-malleable peers back in the lad's direction. Fucking lemmings - handsome, daredevil lemmings that Eggsy, with his dashed military hopes, might well be charmed by. "No, it said no pre-marital sex, but it was written when men could only marry women, and doubtless to preserve the chastity of the ladies with whom the agents of old met." Lancelot smirks, evidently intimating how much of a danger he would have posed in days of yore. Merlin listens, revolted, as Lancelot keeps up his argument, sounding alarmingly criminal with his phrasing: "Ergo, boys are fair game for worthy knights." Were Merlin to protest, he'd likely be pitied for having had no such formative Greek experiences as a lad with his tutors, worlds away from Oxford.

What's truly sticking in his craw, beyond the phrasing, is that this fervent interest has nothing to do with Eggsy himself - all that loveliness that Merlin saw and Rowan readily corroborated - but rather the knights' preoccupation with getting their dicks wet, which they were only forbidden from doing _two days ago_. The ache in Merlin's jaw tells him he's grinding his teeth again.

"Well reasoned," Galahad says in his knightly voice, the timbre of which is enough to have jump-started his last three honeypots and put him at the top of his cohort in NLP training. There are nods all around, but the eloquent shoulder Galahad raises effectively culls the men from the boys among the Kingsmen; apparently, Harry is in the running and considers James and Matthew and Graham his only competition for the lad.

His blood might be boiling, but Merlin's not surprised the knights overlooked him, sitting in the wing chair that gives him the best view of the double doors; they clearly expect him to be passed by like the mutt that's too old to be adopted from a rescue shelter, which is fair enough because he's not got hope that things will go any differently. Eggsy is luminous and must have better taste than to go for the bald berk in a jumper gawping at him.

What does take him aback is that Galahad and Lancelot aren't considering Percival, easily the best-mannered of them all and credibly in the top three for looks. Though perhaps his friendship tainted Rowan with the same stick-in-the-mud reputation with which these danger-seeking morons have saddled him. Rowan has stayed out of the discussion entirely, face mostly buried in a book, though by choosing the proper camera's feed for his glasses Merlin can see that one corner of Rowan's mouth is quirked up in a smile as if the whole topic is merely amusing.

Merlin knows very well he'll get no satisfaction from trying to puzzle out that smile or the reason Percival allowed himself to be so loose-lipped as to disclose the existence of Kingsman to Eggsy or what exactly Eggsy means to Rowan. But he'll get even less from watching the four chief bastards trying to arrange themselves becomingly, as if waiting for a photographer to document their beauty. In any case, he might as well keep working while he waits for either Eggsy or Roxanne, the only Badge Bakery employees vouched for by Percival, to deliver their lunch, and in fact it is soothing to put his mind to work on something practical. If a hand grenade disguised as a cigarette lighter counts as practical.

It is _not_ cheating, he tells himself, that he's the only one Nimue pings over the comms. "Sir," she says gleefully, "by the pricking of my thumbs, something delicious this way comes." It's less of an advantage than he hoped, because any move he makes will be spotted by the knights, so all he does is close the in-progress files, tuck his clipboard between his hip and the chair, and polish his glasses; he's not about to go without them even if their absence does soften his appearance in a way he desperately needs, because then Eggsy would only be a beautiful blur, and there are too many details he wants to verify. He hopes Eggsy will forgive a pathetic old man's staring.

Eggsy's entrance, eagerly awaited, still manages to startle him, if only because the lad's first act is to meet his gaze and grin. "Got everything a hungry knight needs," Eggsy says cheerfully, hoisting his basket a little higher. He pauses when the tips of his winged trainers are just about touching the toes of Merlin's boots, which is distracting enough that Merlin can't identify which knight responds with a lecherous _I'll say_. "No handy little table today, guv?"

Merlin mutely holds out his hands and Eggsy's grin becomes a conspiratorial, dimpled flash. Basket on Merlin's lap, Eggsy holds his list in one hand and starts distributing sandwiches with the other. Percival's tandoori chicken is first out of the basket, Eggsy grinning familiarly up at Rowan as he hands over the naan wrap. Though Rowan establishes how the distribution should go, the rest of the knights fail to follow his sterling example of settling back in his seat with his lunch; they keep close to Eggsy instead of properly dispersing.

The lad smells just as heavenly as he did the day before, and every time he tips forward to procure the next sandwich, his tempting face gets that much closer to Merlin's dazzled gaze. He's probably sitting there looking like a right numpty, all wide eyes and dropped jaw. Eggsy doesn't seem to notice, one small mercy.

What Eggsy _does_ apparently notice is the way the knights are crowding around him again. It's not exactly panic or resignation that Merlin sees on his face, though there are elements of both. "Gents?" Eggsy asks, genially enough. His knees are just kissing Merlin's thigh, two rounds of warmth that Merlin feels through his trousers.

"What's your name, young man?" Harry asks, evidently gambling that a mentor will draw Eggsy out quicker than any other pose he could take up.

"Eggsy." He digs in the basket, clearly playing for time, as Merlin can see that there's only one left. "Got a spicy chicken for Tristan."

"My name is Harry Hart," Galahad announces, suddenly upping the stakes, if the audible breath drawn is any indication. Real names - Galahad is in it to win it.

"Pleasure," Eggsy says politely as Merlin's hands curl into fists around the basket's handle. There's no sandwich for him; Eggsy must have thought he hated the last one since he once again failed to request anything specific. If Eggsy gave him any thought at all.

"Eggy," Lancelot says, making sure his voice carries from back near the decanters, toward which he drifted while Harry was making his opening gambit. ("It's _Eggsy_ ," Merlin hears Eggsy say under his breath as he's relieved of the basket's negligible weight.) "What are your thoughts on whisky?"

"Too posh for me," Eggsy says agreeably. The purple and green beads of his bracelet are striking against the pale gold of his bared wrist.

"Would you like to try this one? It's a '62 Dalmore," Lancelot says, holding up a glass as if he bought and paid for it himself.

Right. Merlin's had enough. He stands, retrieving his clipboard, and murmurs, "Have a good afternoon, Eggsy lad." No one is more startled than him when Eggsy pivots to follow, close enough that there's a static electricity jump from the lad to him, though his quick glance tells him that Harry's and James's faces are broadcasting their surprise.

" _Much_ too posh, thanks," Eggsy throws over his shoulder, and Merlin is falling much too hard to stop. Eggsy, dogging his footsteps, leans in closer still once they're in the corridor with the doors to the common room closed behind them to whisper in his ear, "Thanks for getting me outta there, guv."

"It's Donnan, lad," he hears himself say, a confession that takes even himself by surprise. They've stopped walking and he knows they're perfectly positioned to be captured by camera 13. "Donnan Ivar."

Eggsy goes radiant again, his smile like a bloody beacon, holding out his hand for a firm shake. "Suits you. You just like 'Merlin' better?"

"More that I like having a name they don't know," he admits. He's just thinking he needs to delete all of this footage so that his secret will be safe from Nimue when he looks up from the lad's hands to his face, creamy eyelids dropped over those luminous eyes, the dark lengths of his lashes set off by the pink rising in his downy cheeks. Whatever's got into the lad, the result is too winsome to erase; he'll just have to make sure this particular file is private, only for him.

He waits for Eggsy to say something. And waits. But Eggsy's evidently fixated on the floor, so Merlin tracks his quick breaths by watching the quivers in his strong, slim throat. The silence stretches on until Eggsy pulls his hand free - have they been holding hands all this while? - to slide his mobile from his pocket. The screen image is of a pretty little lass reaching for the viewer, but Eggsy must have been looking solely for the time because he says, "Shit, I gotta run. Catch you next time, guv? Donnan, I mean?"

"Of course, lad," is all he can say, nodding at Eggsy's farewell smile and admiring the lad's form as he tears away in a dead sprint. That was an odd moment, he thinks as he enters his office. He's glad Nimue is in her meeting with her Iberian counterparts and he can pull up the file in relative peace, working quickly to move it to his private server and deleting all traces of it from the agency's records. He swivels in his chair to pick up his prototypes and continue his work but notices, for the first time, the boxes laid out on the side of his desk. The plastic box marked 1 holds sliced purple grapes, perfect little discs made to fill a sandwich. The package marked 2 is designed to retain heat, and it contains a splendid crusty baguette, sliced in half and buttered and stuffed with wodges of coulommiers cheese. He assembles the sandwich as Eggsy evidently intended, and the first bite is reward enough.

He must lose precious minutes in his contemplation of Eggsy's talents, because all too soon he hears Nimue's footsteps coming down the corridor, and she's never once left him alone and gone straight to her own office, as a good Kingsman should. None of the Kingsmen has ever done that, frankly; the inmates have long run the asylum. He just has time to sweep the box marked "...3" into a drawer before Nimue charges in, looking disappointed to see him with what must look like an ordinary baguette.

"Where's mine?" she asks, but Merlin knows very well she's arranged for all of her meetings to occur over the American snacks her mother ships over every month so he simply raises an eyebrow at her tone. He does understand her petulance; however much she enjoys heavy doses of sugar and salt, neither of the colleagues with whom she met is a beauty on Eggsy's scale and so she has missed out. "What's inside?" she asks, curiosity taking over.

"Cheese and grapes," he tells her, ignoring her evident disapproval of his hedonism as he savours every last bite. If he's picturing Eggsy hand-feeding him grapes - and getting to reciprocate, dropping a plump purple gem on a sweet pink tongue - that's no one's business but his. "How was your meeting?"

"Fernando had _much_ to say," she responds, turning to leave. "Paloma and I let him have his fun mansplaining all of his grand ideas to us."

"Your courtesy is a strange and wondrous thing," he agrees gravely, ducking when she balls up and throws an utterly useless memorandum at him. If Chester wants them to pay attention to his so-called thoughts, he should at least have the decency to make sure they're grammatically and logically sound.

Nimue's long gone by the time he finishes his sandwich, so he succumbs to temptation and behaves as he would at his mum's kitchen table, licking the last scant traces of soft cheese from his fingers. Hunting about for a napkin, he finds the third box Eggsy left for him, sitting askew in his top drawer. _heard you had a sweet tooth_ says the pretty scrawl of the note just inside, resting on top of greaseproof paper folded into opacity. The rich aroma of chocolate wafts up as he pries apart all of the stubborn folds and at last he sees a densely fudgy square, lighter and cracked on top. It tastes divine, like the brownie all other brownies want to be when they grow up. Merlin is willing to bet that the only thing that would taste better is Eggsy himself.

*

"It's Donnan!" Davina shouts, not bothering to move the phone from her mouth, so he'll be a little deaf for the foreseeable future, as Davie'd - well, all his sisters, really - got their mum's lung power. "Girls, it's Donnan on the line."

That's all the warning he gets before his two other sisters are joining the call from the extension; he positively doesn't want to know what the three of them had been up to, plotting together over their tea. "All's well?" he tries gamely, but they'd loved him and helped raise him and bossed him to within an inch of his life, so they're not going to be put off from their bloodhound ways by his sad attempts at small talk. They apparently still find it adorable that their wee baby brother tries to keep his life to himself, but they are magnanimously ready to indulge him because he's such a good lad.

"My knees," Cora says, as always with a laugh in her voice, "you know, but good enough to kick my lummox into shape." As if she has ever needed to do more than bat her eyes to get Michael to do her bidding. Michael's always been Donnan's example of _smitten_ , but he suspects he's bearing an uncanny resemblance to his brother-in-law these days, courtesy of a comely baker. "An' here's Ailsa, well, Ailsa, tell him the good news."

"Made Detective Superintendent," Ailsa says quickly, eager to shift the spotlight away from herself, "but Davie's got the exciting news."

"I suspect," Davie says, "that my news of moving across the street to a house that has a proper kitchen and pantry, forty years too late but thank Christ, has nothing on why Donnan's calling."

He can't bring himself to speak about Eggsy, now that it's come to it - it would just be tempting fate - but fortunately he doesn't have to cast about for long before he's got another plausible reason for the call. "Mum's birthday is coming soon. Is this the year we're all going back home to surprise her?"

"If you manage to surprise that woman, I'll pin a medal on you myself," Cora says, snorting with laughter.

"Come, Donnan, we haven't seen you in so long," Ailsa says, evidently having wrested the phone away from Cora.

"And bring someone lovely," Davina adds, sounding ridiculously pleased with herself for guessing what treasure is locked in his heart. If they'd been born centuries ago, his eldest sister would've been burnt for a witch.

*

The gits who call themselves knights have evidently seen too many swashbuckling movies and never had their delusions of grandeur properly quashed. If Merlin has to hear them demanding canes with concealed swords one more time, he'll actually make one and then jam the bloody thing, unsheathed, down the ringleader's throat. There are moments when the only thing stopping him is his certainty that Lancelot would lose little of his panache even with a few inches of steel protruding from his backside.

"A cane's no good," he says again, hoping against hope that this time they will heed his logic. A small part of his mind is wondering why Galahad is staying so silent, looming with his arms crossed in a way that is presumably intended to appear threatening, only Merlin and Galahad both know that Merlin's the taller one and won't be menaced by anyone not at his eye level, no matter how minted. "You're only going to make yourselves conspicuous by carrying around canes that you patently don't need and that you'll forget you were carrying half the time. An umbrella, though, that could reasonably be a constant accessory -"

"For an English gentleman!" Lancelot says triumphantly, as if England is the only place that sees rain and Scotland's dry as a bone. Merlin recalls being soaked through for roughly sixty percent of his childhood; Lancelot really is a colossal wanker.

He reaches for the prototype he's made, its heavy hollow shaft, loaded with both rubber and metal projectiles, being balanced by the density of the bulletproof canopy. He needs to see it in action to evaluate what tweaks he should make; the underlying idea, he's certain, is solid. "Graham?" he calls, deliberately bypassing James. "Care to take it for a spin?"

Lancelot, of course, refuses to keep quiet or stay still, arming himself with a handgun loaded with blanks. " _En garde!_ " he shouts like a hyperactive child, and then it's off to the races, Lamorak and Lancelot ducking around the obstructions of the indoor obstacle course housed in the gymnasium. They are Kingsmen, so they are far from clumsy, but having a new piece of equipment that allows for both offence and defence in play is slowing the two of them down by about half a second. The umbrella needs to be taller and slimmer, Merlin sees, and the mechanism for selecting the projectile type needs to be drastically smoothed out and sped up.

He's so absorbed in watching the knights circling each other - if the bloody agents had the intellectual wherewithal to note the utility of the various pieces of technology he's made for them, he wouldn't have to leave his office so often to observe in person - that he misses the moment Galahad pushes off from the wall to stand next to him and whisper in his ear.

"Lost your appetite for sandwiches?" Galahad asks flatly.

"What?" he asks, stepping to the side to watch how Graham plants himself to take a shot with the umbrella. He'll have to figure out how to better brace the shaft, perhaps even equip the ferrule with a scope lens.

Galahad matches the step, once again standing well within his personal space. The aftershave he's wearing smells ridiculously expensive. "It's been noticed that these days, while you're holed up in your laboratory or lair or what have you, we have to make do with noodles or biryanis or something of the sort. It's understandable that you'd want a look at that delectable sandwich boy, but our competition should not have to wait on your dismal schedule."

"Have you any fucking sense of timing?" he asks as he turns to glare at Galahad, watching as the knight's eyes go wide at his tone. "I'm in the middle of field-testing a new piece of equipment that might well save your lives, and you're complaining about being served gourmet cuisine and not getting another look at a lad whose sole purpose for you is to feature in your wank bank." He can see, over Galahad's tense shoulder, that Lamorak and Lancelot have stopped short and swung round to witness his first vocalised dressing-down of a knight; apparently too shocked to control their limbs, they manage to collide and discharge the umbrella. "Fuck's sake," he says, trying to pull Harry out of the rubber bullet's path, but of course Galahad, not seeing the danger and all het up, refuses to budge. The bullet hits the back of the knight's shoulder, which pushes his fist toward Merlin, and they both go tumbling down in a mess of limbs.

When he heaves Galahad off him - Harry's surprisingly heavy for all his slimness, so apparently the spoon up his arse is solid silver, not just plated - and picks himself up, his jaw is aching mightily and Harry's dark eyes are fixed on him. There are days when nothing seems to go properly, like this whole week when he's locked himself away to get the umbrella prototype built before Percival's mission in New York.

*

So Harry wasn't entirely wrong, the giant prat; he's been ordering lunch for Kingsman from a variety of places that does not include Badge Bakery. He's been directing all his energies to the umbrella - the Rainmaker, he's decided to call it - and in any case, Rowan had said something about the shop's not having a Kingsman-vetted delivery person for a week while Roxanne went on a long overdue holiday and Eggsy had other demands on his time. It was good to hear, because he's not sure whether he can honestly justify keeping Eggsy out of the knights' paths, little as he wants to subject the lad to all their leering lechery.

Not that he's been a model of decorum himself. Thoughts of Eggsy have invaded his dreams as well as his waking hours. He wants to tip the lad's lovely face up and meet his smiling mouth with his own. He dreams of waking to find all that gold-tinged skin bare in his bed, being allowed to kiss across the breadth of his dappled shoulders. He wants to sit on the counter and be fed any tidbits that don't please Eggsy's critical eye, while watching Eggsy work his magic in the kitchen.

He knows very well what possessed him to tell Eggsy his real name. What he wants now is to know if he has reason to hope.

Only he's not going to make sense of the mess his life has become - for which he doesn't even have the knights to blame, which is frankly remarkable - without some sustenance. He's no better at remembering to order for himself from anyone else than he is from Eggsy.

His kitchen cupboards are empty enough that seeing a tumbleweed drift by wouldn't surprise him. Time to go to the shops.

He's rather guiltily putting chocolate granola into his basket, on top of the raspberry honey he got to liven up the Weetabix he'd bought in a virtuous fit ages ago - Eggsy was right, he does have a debilitating sweet tooth - and idly planning out how to recreate the two beautiful sandwiches Eggsy made him when he hears a melodious voice that is familiar enough to make his skin go cool and then hot.

"C'mon, Daisyluv, do we want yellow tomatoes or green-striped ones?" Eggsy is bending over a trolley to make direct eye contact with the wee lassie from his mobile, who's sat in the metal seat. He kisses her temple. "Which tomatoes?"

"Lellow," Daisy says, pointing.

"Yeah, how many?"

"Twee."

"Three tomatoes?" Eggsy confirms, smiling when she nods seriously. "Can you count them out for me?"

"One, two, twee," she chants obediently as he squeezes and sniffs and smiles and generally makes Merlin's mouth water.

"An' I need some of the green-striped ones, an' some of the plums to roast, an' the cherries for a treat, Daisygirl. So many tomatoes for Daisy an' Eggsy!"

The longer Merlin watches them choosing and counting their fruit and veg, the more he's aware that something is wrong. When Daisy looks at Eggsy, she's happy, but her little face is pinched with worry whenever anyone else gets close, brushing by them to select peppers or apples. That her hand is fisted in his shirt so tightly is not normal - Donnan's dealt with all nine of his nephews for long enough to know that at that age, Daisy should be far more careless and trusting - and he recalls Rowan's saying that Eggsy has had a hard time. It appears to have spilled over onto his little girl, though he's lavishing her with enough love to make a dent in her defensiveness.

Donnan wants to have kept Eggsy and his girl from harm, a stupid wish as he hadn't even known Eggsy when the hurts were inflicted, but a sincere one nonetheless. Does Rowan know what happened? Will he confide if asked?

Likely not. It's not his hurt to share. Whatever it was, Eggsy shows so little of it - his eyes are clear, his smile is ready - but Daisy's behaviour is impossible to mistake. Donnan cannot fault Eggsy for prioritising her, but does fervently wish that Eggsy has someone who takes care of him when it's dark and late, when he doesn't have to wear a brave face because his girl's eyes are closed. He wants for that someone to be him, but -

"Lass," Daisy says, pointing at him, and Eggsy turns to follow her finger. The pleased surprise on Eggsy's face makes his heart swoop. "Lass," Daisy says again and Donnan suddenly becomes aware of how deeply the basket's handles are cutting into his fingers, how long he must have been standing there watching this lovely lad and his child.

"Donnan!" Eggsy says. "Weren't expectin' -" he stops when Daisy leans forward, constricted by the trolley seat but clearly trying to hide her face in his shirt.

Donnan's glad he listened to his own instincts not to take a step forward even when Eggsy's smile invited him to. He can't be one more thing for that little girl to fear, and it's not like he has a face that will comfort her. He raises a hand in farewell and turns on his heel, leaving Eggsy behind but locking the memory of Eggsy's voice saying his name deep in his mind.

*

The late afternoon sun is warming him pleasantly. He really ought to get out more; at least that's what Laura Jean - who seems to have appointed herself his newest sister at some point when he should have been paying more attention - tells him now that the weather's no longer unbearably hot. And if he has to name something good about Kingsman, other than Rowan's friendship and Laura Jean's mischief, he'll admit that the grounds are very pretty and extensive. He misses the rolling green hills of his childhood, but he'll settle quite contentedly for acres of flat field in which he can design and re-design obstacle courses as fiendish as his black heart desires.

The newest course was constructed days ago but installed only this morning while he was finishing up the Rainmaker that Percival would carry in New York. He stretches his arms up over his head, fingers interlocked, feeling the satisfying burn in his triceps and shoulders, then twists to unknot his spine. Today is going to be the day that he tackles the entire course in one go rather than the stop-and-start manner that he tested each discrete piece. It's late enough that the knights have stopped pretending to be on call and are turning their livers to leather at some pub or another; he should be able to get through this without any untimely interruptions. In any case, Nimue's around, should one get it into his head to do some actual work rather than just getting half-cut in the company of every wanker around.

This course is purely about physical skills, not requiring any complex problem-solving, and as he runs and leaps over hurdles his mind's chatter goes comfortingly quiet. He stretches to his full length against the climbing wall, trying to let his body locate the handholds rather than simply remembering where he'd situated them, and hears what sounds like a gasp behind him. But the knights are all off out to the pub and Nimue and Arthur have as little time for the physical side of the knights' training as they do each other, so it must just have been a squeak from his trainer against the stone wall or the wind whistling through some nearby trees.

Only it's not; it's Eggsy, sweaty and glowing with exertion, springing up the wall like he's part monkey, part mountain goat, and tossing a grin over his shoulder at him. The lad's soaked through his sleeveless top, the damp patch that bisects his back making his bare shoulders look pillowy and biteable. "We racin' the clock or each other?" Eggsy asks as he balances his weight on his hands to nimbly swing his hips and ankles over the wall. That's a gymnast's move if ever he saw one. Merlin can hear how lightly he lands on the other side in the one square foot between the wall and the next set of hurdles.

"Either way," he calls, pleased that his voice hasn't gone all breathless. He swings his needlessly long legs over the top of the wall and pauses to watch the lad.

"Can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!" Eggsy says, giggling, running and leaping apparently for the sheer joy of it. The pistoning of those thick thighs is a source of delight for Merlin too, and he's smiling like a lunatic as he jumps down and tries to catch up.

He does, barely, at the finish line, wondering if rearranging the course so that his length of limb would be more of an advantage than Eggsy's unbelievable nimbleness would have got him there first. It hardly matters, with them both panting and smiling at each other.

"What are you even doing here, lad?" he asks. Before the worry in Eggsy's eyes can wipe the smile - that's right, the lad has dimples, Christ end him now - off his face, he adds, "Of course you're welcome. It was just a surprise." Eggsy is welcome to whatever Merlin says he is, Arthur be damned.

"Wanted to explain about yesterday, an' Ro said you'd likely be here," Eggsy says, inching closer. Merlin knows he must be fairly pungent right now, but perhaps the dancing breeze that's playing such pretty havoc with Eggsy's hair is carrying the stink of him away. He's taken aback when Eggsy gets close enough to rest a hand on his cheek. "What happened here, guv?"

The warmth of Eggsy's soft palm and nicked fingers is scrambling his mind, to the point that it takes a few moments of actual cogitation to remember. "Training accident with the knights, took a fist to the face," he says, watching in bewilderment as Eggsy slumps a little, evidently relieved that no violence was intended. The beaded bracelet that matches Daisy's catches the light as his hand drops. "Nothing like what you're thinking," Merlin says, without considering the consequences.

Eggsy raises his eyebrows and Merlin tries to look like he hasn't been seeking confidences from Rowan. "Ro told you, then?" Eggsy asks before a most curious expression makes itself at home on his open face.

"Very little. What?"

"You're the boss, right?" Before he can protest that he's less a boss than a cat-herder for the most sublimely stupid cats in existence, Eggsy's barrelling on, a frown between his brows but a dimple popping up in his cheek. Merlin has no idea what to make of those mixed facial messages. "Did you assign Ro to, um, take out a gang from the estates?"

"Nae," he says, startled out of his Kingsman-approved accent. He does remember Rowan being uncharacteristically shifty about the level of force he'd employed in bringing down Reggie Nevis and all his scum-of-the-earth hangers-on, who populated the estates - Rowley Way, if he's remembering properly, some seven months ago - but he hadn't pushed. "Practically speaking, the knights ultimately have full discretion on how they handle their assignments. Percival stated that he used the appropriate and necessary force, and so it was filed."

Eggsy's mouth looks especially charming when it's disbelievingly shaping the name _Percival_ and then quirking up in a smile. Much more light-heartedly, Eggsy continues, "Saved my life, my Daisy's too."

Frowning now at the thought that the danger was so recent and so dire, he asks, "Were you involved with that gang?" again without thinking of how it must sound.

Only Eggsy is blessedly slow to take offence, dragging the toe of one worn trainer in the dirt and muttering, "My stepdad was, the bastard. Gone for good, him an' his dogs, so now Daisy's safe, Mum's safe, an' I can take care of them proper. Not like he ever bothered."

So Daisy's not his child but his sister. It doesn't matter, not when Eggsy evidently thinks of her as his to care for, but it does beg the question of where their mother is and why Daisy hadn't seemed to miss her. He won't ask; the lad will tell him if he wants. "I'm glad, then," is all he says, and the smile takes over Eggsy's face until his eyes are shining like stars on the clearest night.

It actually is getting dark - dusk is falling and the light in the sky is mostly pink and orange, hard to see by - and it reminds him, abruptly, that his duties for the day are not yet done. "I've to see to Percival before he boards the jet."

"Oh," Eggsy's voice is soft, as if it too has gone dusky. "Was gonna ask if I could make you dinner. My mate Jamal said he could keep Daisy if I gave him the word."

"Yes!" It would take a suaver man than he's ever claimed to be to react nonchalantly. "If tonight, it will have to be late." Never mind postponing to a more convenient date - he wants this and he wants it as soon as possible, before the lad comes to his senses. Food as good as Eggsy's should not be a secondary consideration, but it is because the lad is so lovely and Donnan has never wanted like this before. Fair to say he's never loved like this before.

"It's fine, guv," Eggsy says, the smile in his voice distinct despite the dimness. "Get Perce to give you my number and text me when you're done here."

"Don't call him Perce," he teases, "and I know you know my name."

It's only because of the gathering dark that he's taken by surprise, he'll swear to that. Eggsy gets up on his tiptoes so that their lips are just touching and says against his mouth, "See you soon, Donnan."

*

He heads back to the manor - the _cottage_ , as some of the wealthier knights have taken to calling it in a tone seemingly calculated to make his hands fist involuntarily - to shower and make sure Rowan has everything he needs. The manor is quite appealing like this, a few windows illuminated, looking almost like the country pile of an Austen hero. It's the absence of the knights that makes all the difference; without those blasted howler monkeys, it's easier to appreciate the splendour of the edifice's proportions.

Only not every knight has absconded, as he finds when he pops in, blithely assuming that the unlit state of the offices means they're empty. His innocence was nice while it lasted. Flipping the switch in Nimue's office - Laura Jean keeps the nice soap in her desk so that the perfume of the cakes lingers in her office - he's appalled to find her on her desk, knickers clinging to one ankle and Tristan's head mostly up her skirt. Given that he's able to identify the knight by the particular hue of the blond hairs at his nape, Merlin can't quite believe that it escaped his notice that Laura Jean's wearing a skirt to work _as if she anticipated this very outcome._

Once his eyes have recovered from their merciful blindness, he will be thoroughly investigating that possibility.

Tristan, with his limited visibility, evidently has no idea that the light has been switched on or that he has an audience that is not ecstatically participating in his Olympics of the mouth. Laura Jean, eyes wide and fixed on Merlin, does her best to kick him in code - Merlin can make out O-F-F in Morse from the rhythm of her heel - but Tristan, as blithely ignorant as ever, apparently takes the kicks as a further demonstration of her enthusiasm for the entire project. He must be better at his current activity than he is at . . . anything else, because Laura Jean's attempts at speech keep coming out as moans.

There's nothing to be gained by watching this, and Merlin's sure he can raid a knight's stash for soap. Judging by his personal scent, Galahad likely has some absurdly priced concoction with his effects, something hedonistic and misleadingly named, as if anyone rational would willingly bring something called a _jelly bomb_ into the bath. He turns the light off, trying not to meet Nimue's eyes, and shudders when he hears another operatic moan.

If he uses _every bomb in every knight's hoard_ trying to get clean, he will still feel completely justified.

*

It's late enough that the shops are closed, but he wants a courting gift to hand over, however old-fashioned that will make him seem, so he ends up bringing the unopened jar of raspberry honey as his contribution to the meal. Eggsy's eyes go soft again when he sees the jar, and Donnan smiles even though he really should be trying to hide his crooked tooth.

Eggsy's flat is small but he's made a virtue of it, scattering about enough soft furnishings and choosing such bright colours as to upgrade it to delightfully cosy. The pictures of Eggsy and his sister at various ages, beaming at the camera, help with that.

It turns out that Eggsy's made, in deference to the lateness of the hour and perhaps to accommodate his taste as well, small things that he's more used to seeing on his mum's breakfast table - he inherited his sweet tooth from her, and she'd passed it down to five of the six of them, only Ailsa exempt.

The cheese scones with red-onion marmalade are a serious contender for his favourite offering, or perhaps it's the Indian-spiced roasted-tomato galette, but then Eggsy unveils the platter of Scotch pancakes with a blush that reveals just why he thought of them and Donnan is honestly torn between pouring his honey over them or over the lad unaccountably making eyes at him.

The raspberry honey goes on the buttered drop scones and Eggsy's finger swirls around the jar's mouth to catch the last drop that can't decide whether to fall or retreat. Donnan watches the lad suck automatically at the sweetness on his finger and stares in disbelief - he's a fine one to talk about automatic behaviours, he's practically one of Pavlov's dogs just now, triggered by every little thing Eggsy does - as his hand fists in Eggsy's shirt and draws the lad close enough that he can taste his lips.

Eggsy smiles, widely enough that Donnan's actually licking his teeth rather than the lushness of lips, and settles on his lap. Eggsy's arms are warm, curling around his neck. "Hiya, guv," Eggsy says sweetly, pulling back just far enough that the tip of his perfect nose is pressed to Donnan's own.

"Ye are achingly lovely, lad," he says instead of the intended _my compliments to the chef_. Eggsy is rewiring his brain just by breathing, and the worst - or best - of it is that Donnan doesn't even mind. Not a single qualm. Qualm-free. Qualmless.

Eggsy goes fetchingly pink but his eyes stay steady. "Ain't heard that one before."

Where he's getting the nerve, Donnan would very much like to know because it would make his professional life so much smoother, but he drops a hand to Eggsy's admirable backside and squeezes it the way Eggsy had squeezed those lucky tomatoes. "No one's told you how splendid you are?"

"No one I wanted looking," Eggsy allows. His hand comes up - Donnan can see an adhesive bandage wrapped around the tip of the middle finger - and delicately traces his crow's feet as if they can be smoothed out and are not in sober fact deeply carved into his unfortunate face. "You got eyes like nobody's business, guv. Make these knees of mine weak."

His eyebrows draw together in what must look like a forbidding frown - he's seen the footage of himself when he has to review the knights' drills - but Eggsy grins at his surprised reaction. "Yeah, yeah, I ain't forgetting that I got a thing for your eyebrows too, even when they's mostly hidden by your specs."

Huffing a laugh, he says, "I'm not the one with eyes like stars, Eggsy lad."

"You callin' me a liar?" Up goes that scarred eyebrow.

"Mistaken, maybe." And kind, to cast about for something nice to say and deliver it convincingly.

"Ain't a mistake on my end - you look just right to me, an' sound even better. But I did take some knocks to the head."

The way Eggsy makes light of his own pain makes Donnan's heart ache. He raises his hand, a mirror to Eggsy's, and cups a soft cheek. Eggsy's eyes are going heavy-lidded and he moves like liquid in Donnan's arms when he gathers him up for a kiss so shockingly sweet that it pours joy into every cell in his body.

*

With Rowan in New York - with Rowan having very neatly _ensured_ that he was in New York, and that, Merlin realises, bears investigating - Donnan can strut around the manor the way he bloody well feels like. All of the other knights, after all, are self-absorbed to the point that they might as well be fucking sponges; it would take an Act of God to get them to notice that he's behaving like he's had an infusion of sunshine. It's not within his power to tamp down his elation, because he'd held Eggsy in his arms, kissed Eggsy's soft and responsive mouth, for hours that had flown by.

Laura Jean, whose observational powers he'd forgotten in his reckoning, is too desperately apologetic to question his newfound top-of-the-world attitude. "Merlin," she says, her eyes wide and her cheeks as red as her lips, "I am so sorry for the unprofessionalism - shit, I can't even remember if that's a proper word - the lack of professionalism, that's better, the -"

"Shagfest in your office?" he suggests mercifully.

"No! No full-on shagging, can't have a knight 'pursuing his own physical gratification prior to acceptance of troth,' right? And I'm not engaged," she jokes weakly, holding up a hand to allow him to see her unadorned ring finger.

He knows how her mind works, after years of working together, and he's piecing it together quite well, judging by the way her face falls as he speaks. "The wording does suggest a loophole that as long as it is the _partner's_ 'physical gratification' that is the stated goal, some intimacy can occur without a formal engagement. So, you found the regulation and put on a skirt and explained the logic to Tristan in words small enough for him to understand." It's not for him to question why _Matthew_ was her object; he knows her weakness for blonds but thought she'd have set a minimum-IQ requirement at least. She's glowing with the force of her flush now, and peering up at him out of one nearly screwed-shut eye. "Well played, Nimue. You might have a future in tutoring; I was beginning to think Tristan couldn't follow from A to B."

Like him, Laura Jean has a tendency to say things without thinking them through. "He went from A to Z a few times," she says, bright red and grinning.

He really doesn't want to consider cunnilingus techniques or any of the knights engaged in sexual activity, particularly not with his trusty second. "Did he know he only needed to shape the letters, not sing the song?" he asks, and laughs until he's got tears in his eyes at the way she's trying valiantly not to join in by pinching up her face.

When she at last gives in, the laughter, thankfully, acts as a restorative agent, making her more herself and not the mortified and cringing creature she'd been five minutes earlier. "I tried to stack the deck in my favour," she admits with admirable candour, "not knowing what your reaction would be."

"Meaning you cleaned and polished your desk?" he asks; the scent of lemon oil is distinct in the air and the wood of her desk is gleaming softly. There has to be more, though, because cleaning the desk in her office might be hygienically necessary but has nothing to do with his conviction that she alone could be Nimue and it will be over his dead body that Arthur hears of her initiative and expels her from this blasted agency.

"Yes, that, and also I thought to bring that beautiful boy round again to brighten up your day, give you a visual to supersede, um, whatever you're seeing when you close your eyes. I ordered today's lunch from his shop." She smiles hopefully up at him. "The knights seemed pleased and James and Graham put in specific requests, and for everyone else I just ordered the same as you did the first time. So we're good, yes?" she asks, already nodding in a shameless ploy to get him to agree.

*

He's not used to considering his brain as lacking in any way, but it's certainly falling down on the job of figuring out why Eggsy wants him. He's not entirely lost; he's sure that Rowan has put in a good word - more likely a good novel the length of _War and Peace_ \- for him, but Eggsy seems genuinely to find him appealing on several levels. Even at his worst, though, he'll do himself the courtesy of acknowledging he's in no way as all-around atrocious as the knights.

James and Graham have forever disgraced the names of Lancelot and Lamorak, as far as he's concerned, with their special orders from the sandwich shop. Puffed up like they think some unseen higher power will reward their idiotic initiative to select egg mayonnaise sandwiches by awarding a hundred points to Gryffindor, they both try to spin their orders into more protracted conversations with Eggsy. The lad, meanwhile, just looks like he's trying not to laugh as they talk over each other and emphasise his nickname while assuring him that they are _very fond_ of eggs.

Eggsy's sidelong glances at him are delightful, and he nods, confirming that this is real life and there are grown men in positions of great responsibility who actually behave in this way. The last glance turns into an eyeroll that makes him laugh, though he quickly disguises it as a cough. His lap feels empty without Eggsy's sweet weight, and his tablet is an unsatisfactory replacement. The scent of so many sandwiches is filling the air around him and he wonders what Eggsy has made for him today.

Looking up, he realises he's not the only man staying out of the crowd forming around Eggsy. Tristan is sprawled out on a sofa, wearily unwrapping his sandwich - oh, Laura Jean's got no mercy and ordered him a baguette that will strain his tired jaw - and Galahad is standing back from the fray, arms crossed analytically over his broad chest. What is he up to?

"Galahad?" Eggsy calls. Upon hearing no answer, he gestures for the cluster of knights around him to quiet down a little and tries again. "Galahad?" Swivelling - Merlin is reminded of the wonders of Eggsy's lithe hips filling his hands - so that he can check every corner of the common room, Eggsy beams when he spots Harry. "There you are. Roast beef with horseradish for Galahad. Hope you enjoy it."

Harry's response to that wish is enough of a non sequitur that Eggsy's eyes dart over to Merlin's in puzzlement. "Do you know what kind of business Kingsman is, Eggsy?"

Merlin might not know what exactly Galahad's ploy is, but he knows the knot in his stomach is unhappy about it. He shakes his head, indicating to Eggsy that he has no idea what answer the knight is expecting. "It's a tailor's, isn't it?" Eggsy says, gesturing at all the well-dressed plonkers around him. Odd, but Merlin doesn't feel at all left out, though he's sitting in his rust-coloured jumper that was a birthday gift from Cora and ordinary trousers instead of the bulletproof suit every agent has donned merely to mingle in the common room.

"Indeed," Galahad says, rich voice warm with praise for Eggsy's evident perspicacity while gesturing reassurance to the other knights that the lad hasn't divined that they in fact work for an intelligence agency. If he only knew. "We specialise in gentlemen's bespoke suiting. A young gentleman ought to have a bespoke suit in order to be properly turned out. Would you like one, Eggsy?"

That's a hell of an enticement to throw out - Harry can't possibly mean it. Eggsy is gawping at the offer and the room goes quiet. "We needn't make a production of it or delay you too much, dear boy; I can take all of your preliminary measurements with my hands." Galahad has too much control over his velvet voice to sound the least bit smug, but Merlin still wants to beat him bloody for suggesting it's his right - that it would be a _favour_ to the lad - to touch Eggsy so intimately. Whether Galahad intends to follow through and actually deliver a suit is immaterial, as he just wants to curl those long fingers around Eggsy's shapely and supple limbs. Merlin has no trouble picturing it, nor the far more pleasing image of his own fingers establishing a tight grip around the knight's throat.

Doubtless it's because he's a pleb and not a weak-chinned wanker, but he cannot for the life of him figure out why actually asking Eggsy out would be breaking the rules of the knights' stupid and infuriating contest. It can't be that they don't actually want to win, for the prize is very much worth the having, though _it's not quite cricket_ is probably the idiotic justification they're using for so much gracelessly disguised propositioning. Surely simply asking Eggsy on a date would satisfy the first part of the regulation, that all courting must be aboveboard. But perhaps it's that the knights, classist fucks the lot of them, can't reconcile their received ideas of proper courtship with the reality of an estates lad: useful in terms of a shag but not someone to otherwise acknowledge.

"'preciate it, but it ain't for me," Eggsy says, playing up his accent in a way that Merlin has done in his time, anything to keep the distinction between knights and himself absolutely clear. Just hearing those words, he knows which theory the lad believes. "Got more deliveries to make anyhow."

This time it's Merlin following Eggsy as the lad promptly puts the common room behind him. He looks _hurt_ though he's unbowed as ever and Donnan aches to hold him. Eggsy's eyeing the spot in the middle of his chest as if it's his face's rightful home and it is calling to him, but steels himself and says instead, "Got to go. Really do have more deliveries than just for knights of old." He's quiet then, looking up and raising his scarred eyebrow, so Donnan catches him in his arms and Eggsy presses his cheek to the soft orange cashmere he'd been contemplating.

"Go, love," he says before they get comfortable enough to merge into a single entity. "I'll call you tonight."

"You'll come meet my Daisy tonight," Eggsy corrects him, looking pleadingly up, all shy hope, and Donnan is powerless to resist.

*

Eggsy answers the door with his sister on his hip, and Donnan is very glad that his hands are full so that he cannot startle the little lass by reaching out for her irresistible brother. "What's all this?" Eggsy asks, surveying the bags.

Before Donnan can defend himself against the charge in Eggsy's eyes, that he bought too much, Daisy speaks up. Pointing at him, she says, "Lass!" It's not excitement, precisely, in her tone; it's more along the lines of requiring an explanation for the Donnan-shaped phenomenon she's observed on her doorstep.

"She's sayin' 'glass' 'cause of your specs," Eggsy explains. "She gets a kick out of Rowan's, and she don't know no one else who wears them." It's breaking Donnan's heart that Daisy isn't making a nuisance of herself by reaching for them and getting the lenses smudged, that she's too uncertain of herself to act as all of his nephews had, like the world revolved around them and their desires. "You can come in, y'know. You ain't a vampire."

"Cheeky monkey," Donnan says, smiling at the lad, whose sweet grin is curling his lips just so. "I can't give you my glasses, lass, but there are other presents for you in my bags." He waits for Daisy to give a sign that she is not alarmed by his intrusion on her space and Eggsy must understand because he murmurs softly into her temple while she eyes Donnan up and down. By slow degrees, her arms relax their hold around Eggsy's neck, and when Eggsy smacks a kiss against her cheek, Donnan takes his cue and steps inside. "Milk rusks because I thought I spotted a few teeth in there - yes, there they are," he says when Eggsy tickles her enough to get her to laugh. "Some slides for these pretty curls," he continues, and Eggsy is kind enough to hum appreciatively. "And something homemade," he finishes, pulling the plush grey-and-orange ball out of its bag and holding it in front of her. Her eyes are still big but not nearly as worried as he'd expected; being in her own home and her protector's arms must make her feel as safe as she gets. Still, it takes long seconds of patiently waiting before she reaches out to take the toy, and her eyes never leave his face.

She's so startled by the recording that's triggered when she squeezes it that she drops the ball. _I was made for Eggsy's wee lassie_ says the ball, and four big eyes are on him. "Ye can record over that so she has your voice always," he explains, but Eggsy shakes his head, darts in to kiss his cheek, and drops down into a squat to pick up the ball and hand it back to his sister.

"Give it a good squeeze, Dais," Eggsy says, rising, and the words repeat when she does, staring at Donnan. Every time she squeezes it, she's watching his mouth, presumably to figure out how he's throwing his voice. Five repetitions later, Daisy laughs and Eggsy looks elated. Two more, and she's reaching out her arms but keeping a determined grip on the toy. Donnan recognises the gesture and plucks her from his lad's arms, jiggling her a little to say hello. She responds by smashing the ball into his mouth, evidently determined to reunite his voice with his vocal cords, and he can hear Eggsy cackling while he spits out the fluff coating his tongue.

"Y'are this close to forfeiting your treat, lad," he warns. Eggsy keeps laughing, setting off his sister, the two of them blithely ignoring him. "Fine, all the baklava will be in my happy belly at the end of the night." He sneaks a quick kiss against Daisy's cheek, pleased that she settles into his arms without a fuss.

"Oi," Eggsy says, catching his breath. "One, you ain't got a belly, guv. I saw them washboard abs you're rocking. An' two, that ain't the treat I'm hoping for tonight." Eggsy's demure gait as he leads the way to the kitchen and the butter-wouldn't-melt look he throws over his shoulder are not fooling Donnan in the slightest, but all the same it's as if the lad were hauling him forward with an invisible rope because he can do nothing but follow dumbly in his wake.

*

" _Nine_ nephews?" Eggsy asks disbelievingly.

Donnan's taking off his jumper and rolling up his sleeves as he speaks; being an uncle is enough to let him know that child-rearing is not a spectator sport but an undignified scrum. "Hellions all. Gavin and Gillan each have two, Davina's got three, and Cora's got twins. Ailsa and I have none."

Eggsy, warily curious, is eyeing him like he's going to pull all of them out of his pocket at the slightest provocation. Daisy, sporting a shampoo mohican of majestic proportions, takes the opportunity presented by her hair stylist's divided attention to wiggle and set off a small wave in the round green tub set in the sink. "An' you're the baby?" Eggsy continues, turning back to run a soft soapy cloth over his sister's face. Her dinner is stubborn but is finally peeling free of her skin. She squawks a brief protest that dies when Eggsy kisses her nose.

"My mum calls me her unexpected blessing," he says, because Eggsy deserves to know all of his mum's terrible jokes. "I'm eight years behind Ailsa, fifteen behind my brothers, who were thoroughly disgusted by the entire thing since they'd learnt what it took to make a baby." He shields Daisy's face and pours warm water over her head to rinse the baby shampoo from her hair. Wet like this, her hair's the same brown-sugar colour as Eggsy's, plastered to her small skull. She's so pink, so brand-new, that his heart clutches the way it had nine times before, as he held each of his nephews for the first time.

He's glad Rowan ensured that her so-called father's rotting in the ground. How anyone could look at her and think to hurt her is incomprehensible.

"Our mum swears Dais was a surprise, but . . . lots of things must take you by surprise when you're drunk an' high all the time to cope with the misery of being married to _that_." Eggsy's bright tone and easy movements belie the hurt and frustration of his words; Daisy's none the wiser, clucking up at the two of them and splashing happily in the warm water. "Finally got her into rehab last week, gonna be good as gold for her girl, isn't that right, Daisyluv?" The eyes Eggsy turns on him are a little dimmed but still the loveliest Donnan's ever seen. "Grab her towel, would you?"

Donnan shakes out and positions the hooded towel that's made to look like a frog so that he can wrap Daisy up warm and secure when Eggsy hands her over. She squeals and wriggles contentedly while he watches Eggsy drain the tub and lead him back to the tiny room that holds her crib. He rubs as he walks, and she's mostly dry by the time he's laid her on her changing table. She's yawning while Eggsy's wrestling her into a nappy and pyjamas with bright blue snaps, and her hair is drying in little spiral curls. Eggsy switches on the nightlight and baby monitor, turns off the lamp, and backs out of the room, grabbing him along the way.

Eggsy burrows in when Donnan opens his arms and rests against his chest like he's never letting go. "Never seen a happier little lass than she is when she's with ye," he murmurs, feeling hot spots of dampness hitting his shirt. Eggsy tips his head back and Donnan chases the tears with his thumb. "You're her whole world, lad."

"Other way round," Eggsy says quietly. They stay like that, Eggsy's heavy head cupped in Donnan's hands, and then Eggsy asks, "Stay the night?"

*

Eggsy's t-shirt is hugging his chest under the rust-coloured jumper he has to wear again to work, and between sleeping later than he'd meant to and trying to get some porridge and fruit _into_ Daisy rather than just on her face, he hadn't had time to give his head or face a proper shave, so of course Chester Fucking King is the first person he sees when he arrives at work.

"Merlin," the man says, snorting irritably, though at what specifically Merlin can't be sure. Chester's had years to be disappointed that while Merlin was mastering every bit of tech he could get his hands on, he hadn't also invented a time machine and gone back to ensure that he was born to parents of what Chester calls the proper class.

"Arthur," he returns in a much pleasanter tone. Eggsy had lain on top of him half the night, his pointy little chin burrowing a dip in Donnan's breastbone, and been fantastically complimentary about what he was pleased to call Donnan's many charms. First and foremost was his voice, and now Merlin's idiotically self-aware of his timbre and tone and how little he wants to waste any of what Eggsy treasures on a pillock like Chester King.

"I trust the knights are adhering to the new regulation?" Chester says, trying to rock forward on the balls of his feet, but the way he's crossed his hands at the small of his back throws off his balance. Merlin will let himself laugh about that later.

"As far as I know," he agrees, though their failure to get off with Eggsy is certainly not for lack of trying. Little as he tolerates them, they are infinitely to be preferred to Arthur, the blasted toad. His wife must lead a wretched life.

"I have been hearing about . . . a sandwich boy? Seems to have made himself quite at home here, you know the type, will take a mile at the slightest encouragement. Some of the knights seem to be allowing him all sorts of liberties," Arthur presses, as if Merlin's ever been ready to run his mouth like Arthur's informant; at a guess, he'd pick Nigel.

"I wouldn't worry, sir," he says, making sure he's speaking the literal truth. "I doubt he'll get any satisfaction from any of the knights." _Wizards_ , he thinks, are an entirely different matter.

Chester harrumphs and leaves his office, though the smell of his cologne lingers unpleasantly in the close space. Merlin opens the side door to encourage the scent to dissipate and sees Nimue and Tristan kissing hello. It's rather adorable, how fervent they are, but Tristan really should be put through a remedial course on covert operations; he looks around _after_ he's committed the clandestine act and entirely fails to see Merlin, about a yard away, directly behind him. Nimue has her hands in Tristan's blond hair, the better to guide him back to her. Once again, the knight fails to display even the least bit of situational awareness. Merlin will have to pick his next mission very carefully if he's not to have Tristan die in the field.

Done kissing him, Nimue sends Tristan on his way with a soft nudge of her palm against his chest and makes a beeline for Merlin. Tristan turns to see what she's heading for, catches Merlin's eye, and freezes in place. "Good morning, Tristan," Merlin says when it's clear Matthew is petrified of his judgement.

"Morning, Merlin. Oh, hello, Nimue," Tristan finally says, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Merlin's face. There's nothing to do in the face of such a pitiful attempt at misdirection but to ignore it and count that as an act of charity. Merlin wants to tell Matthew to relax and allow himself to look at Nimue, whose face is far more worth looking at, but then Tristan would still be squirming in front of him. He retreats into his office instead, allowing Nimue to come to him and Tristan to sprint away.

"It's getting serious, then?" he asks when she's leaning back against his closed door.

"Not as serious as yours must be," she says, pointing at his tell-tale jumper. "Who is it?"

He's taken aback, certain that his besottedness was being clearly broadcast every time Eggsy was near, but then she's never seen them together, has she? The knights have, but they're too used to overlooking him to notice how wonderstruck he's been. He trained them all to pay attention to every variable in a situation, and if they've consigned him to the status of a boring old constant instead, they're in for a rude awakening. He grins at the thought.

Nimue sighs, apparently believing his wardrobe is due to a work crisis - the kind a knight has often precipitated - rather than any kind of romantic interlude. "Oh, Lord, the Grin of Great Justice. Who's paying for what now?"

*

"Daisy's asleep?" he asks Eggsy in a hushed tone, though Daisy is two rooms away and would only be able to hear him speak at his normal volume if she were secretly a bat hybrid. Eggsy nods, a smile lighting up his face, and if Donnan can only figure out what it is about him that makes the lad smile so, he'll promise to keep doing it forever. He leans back against Eggsy's headboard. "Now will you tell me?"

That sweet smile is replaced by a disbelieving scowl. "You're still stuck on that jam?"

"My mum's got a birthday coming up, I just want to buy her some." That sounds totally plausible and Eggsy will never have to know that he's planning to keep a case of the stuff in his own flat.

"You can't." Smug is not a good look on Eggsy. Actually, it is, because there's no denying the lad is luminous in every mood and light, which means Donnan's poor heart has been working overtime since they met. "I made it myself."

His gawping cannot be the least bit attractive, but Eggsy seems undeterred, judging by the way he is still stripping off his hooded sweatshirt and climbing on the bed. Eyeing the lad's gorgeous thighs in motion, Donnan hastens to get with the program, lifting his jaw off the ground and unbuttoning his cuffs. He's pushing his luck, he knows, but he still has to know what Eggsy had done to make jam that he'd happily drown in, when he's never been particularly fond of any fruit preserves, bitter marmalade aside. "How?" he asks the lad straddling his lap as if he's a king who's found his throne.

Eggsy is more merciful than he deserves, kissing him sweetly and answering his gasped plea between dropping his mouth to the overheated skin of his cheek and jaw. "Soaked the strawberries in sugar an' lemon juice for hours. Long enough that Dais and me got all the way through _My Fair Lady_ even with rewindin' half the songs. Would you sing to me sometime?"

"Anything," he promises recklessly before losing himself once more in Eggsy's soft mouth, fingers weaving in feathery hair.

"Added balsamic, boiled it, done," Eggsy finishes when they've both taken a breath. Donnan's not quite sure what he's even talking about when there are better uses to put their mouths to. He bites down on Eggsy's plush lower lip, revelling in the choked groan that gets him.

"Eggsy lad," he breathes, encouraged by the way Eggsy wraps warm bare arms around his neck, cuddling him close. "My sweetheart," he says as Eggsy's fingers skate along his skull and nape. The hungry touch is setting off firecrackers in his head, or maybe it's the way Eggsy is starting to rock in his lap.

The movements are small and urgent, and Donnan feels wound too tight. "Please," he hears, so addled he can't tell which of them said it. "Eggsy, love."

Eggsy seems to have given up on words entirely, humming half-contentedly, half-pleadingly into his mouth. The bandages on Eggsy's fingers scrape against Donnan's belly as Eggsy unbuttons his shirt and starts in on his trousers. Donnan chases after Eggsy's sweet mouth when it's pulled away, flailing gracelessly when the lad retreats altogether. "Off," Eggsy says authoritatively, setting a sterling example by shimmying out of his jeans and pants and only then making even quicker work of the thin t-shirt clinging valiantly to his torso. Donnan eels his way out of his own trousers, taking his pants along for the ride, and Eggsy leans in to help with his shirt, putting all that satiny skin in reach of Donnan's greedy mouth. He wants to get drunk on his beloved.

"Ohhhhh," Eggsy sighs as they end up back where they started, Eggsy's pretty knees kissing Donnan's hips, Eggsy's tempting mouth hovering just high enough above that Donnan has to reach up to bite it. "Oh, bugger," Eggsy says in an entirely different tone before arching backward in a move that is ostensibly to bring Eggsy's discarded sweatshirt within reach of his questing fingertips but actually might as well be calculated to make Donnan lose his bloody mind. Donnan shakily traces the lines of his lad's frown, which melts away when he locates the lubricant in the pocket of the inside-out sweatshirt. The sweet triumph on Eggsy's face is merely the umpteenth reason to kiss him.

It is light, not heat, that exhibits properties of both a wave and a particle, at least that's what he thinks he remembers learning long ago, but Eggsy, on top of him, is casually rewriting the foundations of the known world. Every undulant roll of his hips, every hot burst of a hitched sigh - every degree of luxurious heat building between them so sweat stands out on their skin - is working Donnan up to a fever pitch. He'd close his eyes, only he cannot deny himself the sight of Eggsy so incandescent. He tucks his face against that flushed throat, heat not dying down, and so feels it on his skin when Eggsy says, "I'm yours."

Too dazzled to know what to do, except his hand is steady when it accepts the tube Eggsy passes over, except his mouth knows how hard to bite at the geometric splendour of a jaw to make his man moan deliriously. His fingers know the way to unfurl before Eggsy's heavy-lidded eyes, to press slick into the hot tight space where his cock will push, in maddeningly slow inches. Eggsy takes his fingers beautifully, elastic with youth. Donnan runs a hand up the lad's spine just to feel the down on his skin.

"Yours," Eggsy says again, slurring the word, and Donnan recollects that his man has a liking for his voice. He spreads his fingers carefully, fighting against the pressure Eggsy's body is exerting.

"I'm yours, Eggsy lad, beloved. Yours for the taking, yours for the keeping." By the keening he gets in response, he knows the lad's hearing him. "You're my sweetheart," he says, drawing his fingers free. Eggsy's response is to clap hands to his face, draw it up for a furious kiss, and sink halfway down his cock. Donnan shouts into Eggsy's mouth and lets him work his sweet will. There is nothing he wants more than to see Eggsy come to joy in his arms.

*

He's even later to work the next morning, all because Eggsy had nosed clumsily at his jaw and said, "Mmmm, stubble," in a just-waking-up voice that got Donnan hard enough to put iron to shame. He'd let the lad feel that stubble on his splendid thighs, rubbing them rosy while he worked his mouth on the fat inches of his cock and listened to that sweet voice wring every note of music out of his name.

He's unashamedly planning to live on that memory for hours, so it's a blessing that no one intercepts him as he makes his way to his office. Eggsy's dappled skin is fine-grained and littered with scars that he does not try to hide, but it is the memory of the smell of him even more than the glorious sight of his nakedness that Donnan is happily wallowing in. He catches sight of himself in the monitors' reflection, grinning from ear to ear, as he reviews the feeds for the actively engaged knights.

Percival's feed is dark, but there's a file that ends properly with his sign-off, so Merlin knows the New York mission - a reconnaissance assignment that required none of Rowan's areas of particular expertise - was successful. He wants to hear why Rowan insisted on it in the first place and just what was lending that undertone of happiness to his friend's voice. As Percival is due back in the afternoon, he'll get his answers soon enough.

Perhaps his optimism was ill-founded, he thinks when he has to go down to the common room to find Bedivere and Gawain, who owe him reports on the signet ring and cufflinks, respectively. Neither one has shifted himself to deliver a blasted thing, and it's only due to Chester's insistence that Merlin should incorporate the knights' feedback into iterations of his designs that he can't simply declare the current, rigorously tested versions field-ready. The pair of them, reprehensibly, are watching Gareth act out a scene from the latest Bond film, as if 007's arsenal is not, all modesty aside, mere lamplight next to the full sun of inventions that Merlin has devised for Kingsman.

He looks around and sees another cluster of knights speaking quietly together, all turned slightly toward Galahad, who has evidently got what he wanted and just sat down a few yards away with a copy of _Le Monde_. Merlin knows quite well that Harry is perfectly fluent in French - the knight had grown up visiting a French grandmother every Christmas and summering with cousins at some Loire Valley estate - but his eyes are not moving along the text, instead gazing through the paper into some middle distance. Merlin sighs, because none of the knights can see Galahad's expression, though Lancelot is angling himself around to be able to, and so he's the only one who can see that Harry looks like he needs to talk. Damn the man for being too valuable to ignore.

"Hello, Galahad," he says and sits on the footstool to allow Galahad the illusion of greater height and any feelings of power associated therewith; the knights' egos are fragile and monstrous simultaneously. Galahad's eyes are as focused as lasers, liable to burn through whatever they light on next. "Everything alright?"

He drops his gaze politely, then looks back up when all he hears is silence. "Merlin," Galahad says, eyes sharpening further, though his voice is still quiet enough to keep his words private, "let us come to an arrangement."

Merlin raises an inquisitive eyebrow. Does Galahad want a signature weapon or a customised accessory? Of its own volition, his other eyebrow shoots up to join its twin when Galahad continues. "I've just now heard of what Matthew's doing with Nimue - at her behest, surely, as he's too wet behind the ears to take that kind of initiative and hardly clever enough to find such a loophole - and thought that we should do the same." There in Galahad's rich voice is the implication that he is no such callow youth; the senior knight is a man reaching confidently out to take what he wants.

That is the bit that's throwing him for a loop. Galahad has half the service panting after him - whether they want to be him or fuck him Merlin hasn't quite plumbed - and has only to snap his fingers to get them to form a bloody queue, but he's implying that Merlin is his first choice for a bed partner. Perhaps his choice is strategic, a sign that he recognises that Merlin determines the knights' futures to a greater degree than even Arthur? Certainly it's dictated by circumstance of this restrictive regulation, because Harry Hart is too handsome not to be able to pull when he has free rein.

Warming to his topic, Galahad continues, tones so perfectly shaped that Merlin feels as if he's being propositioned by the bodiless voice that lives inside his radio to deliver the evening news. "You've seen me work, you've been in my ear on my honeypot missions. You know me, all I have to offer in that arena." The word _all_ is subtly stressed, and Merlin cannot decide if that's Galahad's way of alluding to the breadth of his skills, the full range of his sexual tastes, or simply the generosity of his physical endowment. Galahad shifts in his seat, his impeccable suit clinging attractively to his taut, powerful body. "And you're bound to be a beast in bed, with how buttoned-up you generally make yourself seem here. I'll enjoy that. You will too."

_Harry Hart_ has thought about him in his bed. Merlin gives himself a good pinch in case Eggsy's come has hallucinogenic properties and he's dreaming this entire conversation, but the common room stays steady around them and the satisfied smile on Galahad's beautiful face just keeps growing. He can feel each centimetre of his body heating up as Galahad's proprietary gaze rakes over it.

To spare the man's ego, he should do this more gracefully, but there's no contest when Eggsy Unwin has handed him his heart. "No, thank you," he says, and Galahad's incredulous stare is not something he could have ever dreamt up, so this must be reality. Galahad shakes his head in disbelief, forcing Merlin to continue. "If it's a loophole you're looking for, you might try Lancelot. He's likely to oblige."

It takes several moments, long enough that Merlin starts to rise from his awkward perch on the footstool, but then Galahad - no, Harry - gets his voice to work again after a few false starts. His face has gone white. "Merlin, please," he says urgently. "I shouldn't have - didn't mean to imply that I only wanted you in my bed as some sort of outlet. I've wanted you for -" he runs out of steam and words, looking stricken, and beautiful as his voice is, Merlin finds he prefers the telling silence. 

"No, don't worry. You didn't know I'm out of the running." How on earth could he have known that this was what all of Harry's looks at him meant?

Galahad smiles wanly, as if to acknowledge that the phrasing allows for the consolation of not being rejected outright, but rather because of an existing attachment. "Still, it wasn't right of me -"

"Harry," he interrupts, smiling genuinely for the first time at the crestfallen knight who has loomed large in his mind as the epitome of everything posh, English, and Kingsman, "it may not have been right, but you're not wrong. Ask my man, he'll tell you I _am_ a beast in bed." Harry's eyes go absurdly big and then he's laughing, they're both laughing, and Merlin sees every head swivel toward them and knows most of them were wishing they were in his place, at Galahad's lordly feet. Harry has nothing to worry about.

*

Percival is doing very little to disguise his happiness - and why should he, it's only the two of them in his office, not the common room or, worst of all, Chester's ridiculous toasting room - and so his post-mission report is rather less coherent than Merlin is accustomed to from his friend. "Rowan," he says finally, after the knight has enumerated all of the links he found between the seemingly harmless group he went to investigate and the manufacturers of automatic firearms, "just tell me."

"Roxy should hear it too," Rowan says, looking torn, and Merlin's too curious to wait. Rowan spends the time travelling between the estate and his sister's shop teasing him about Eggsy as if he weren't the one to introduce them. The worst of it is that Merlin can't even needle him about his matchmaking tendencies without remembering that he did the same just this morning, and the story of Harry's proposition is not one he's inclined to spread, even to Rowan or Eggsy, since Harry had apologised so handsomely and immediately.

Donnan's first impression of Roxanne is that she is exactly as beautiful as she looks in the photos strewn around Eggsy's tiny flat - she might match Harry in the classic-looks department - and that Rowan's love for her is fully reciprocated, given how her face is wreathed in smiles once she catches sight of her brother. "Well?" she demands, hands on her hips. The bustle around her doesn't slow down, three employees in familiar black polo shirts filling the vacuum she leaves when she steps away from the counter stocked with various types of sugar and flour.

"Sorry," Rowan says, sounding anything but, "this is -"

"Merlin, yes, I know, Eggsy goes on _at great length_ about you and your magic ball." She and Donnan share an amused glance as Rowan chokes a bit on her word choice. "The ball he magicked up for Daisy, Rowan, you pervert."

Before Rowan can do much more than draw himself up to his full height, Eggsy comes through the swinging door looking all lit up. "Thought I heard someone say 'Merlin,'" he says breathlessly, then wraps himself around Donnan. "What's going on?"

"She said yes," Rowan says quietly.

Eggsy whoops just as he had when Daisy kissed Donnan goodnight, and Roxanne jumps into her brother's arms, coating his suit in a fine dusting of caster sugar. Eggsy hugs them both around the neck, bounces up to smack a kiss on the back of Rowan's head, and turns to Donnan. Eyes glowing, he surges forward, propelling Donnan backward until his back hits the wall and kisses him fervently between whispered explanations. "She was serving - American armed forces - met her back then - she an' Rox stayed in touch - he proposed a year ago - she lost her legs in a bombing - she tried to give back the ring - he proposed again - an' again -"

"And she finally said yes," Donnan finishes, cupping Eggsy's head more securely for one last kiss.

"Eggsy'd say yes right now," some male voice with an accent like Eggsy's and Jamal's says, rather approvingly. Donnan wants to shake that man's hand.

"Get it, Eggs," a woman cheers, and Donnan knows he's blushing, can feel the heat of Eggsy's own flush too.

"Oi!" Eggsy says, adorably terrible at exercising his authority. "Three cheers, then back to work, the lot of you."

"What we cheerin'?"

"Love!"

"Sex!" A very creditable wolf-whistle pierces the air.

"We are cheering the true love of Rowan and Gazelle," Eggsy says, enunciating madly and pretending to great dignity for all of a moment before pummelling Rowan's back and kissing his cheek, Roxanne's cheek, and the cheeks of everyone in kissing distance; Donnan is profoundly glad none of this is happening in the circle of libidinous hell that is the Kingsman common room. He's even gladder when the lad leans against him, lithe back to his front, to lead the cheers that set the sweet air of Badge Bakery ringing. 

*

He's supposed to be tiring Daisy out enough that she'll go down to sleep in the new crib standing in his spare room with only minimal protest, but Donnan suspects he's being played by a master: a giggling, pig-tailed master who thoroughly enjoys making him dance clumsily along with her. Eggsy is making their dinner - how he's supposed to eat ever again after the feast Eggsy produced for their Saturday lunch, Donnan has no idea - but he is laughing along with his sister in a way that tells Donnan he's peeked out of the kitchen a time or two.

The music, which he'd thought had been on continuous replay for his sins, finally stops, but Daisy keeps it up with the stomping that is clearly meant to be thunderous and the arrhythmic wiggling of her little bum that indicates delight. Donnan joins in, quietly and mindful of the neighbours, and Daisy shrieks in glee. She's babbling, mostly incoherently - a clear sign she's getting sleepy - but he makes out "Egg." He scoops her up and pads quietly over to the doorway.

Eggsy looks pleasingly at home in Donnan's yellow kitchen, though he'd pulled a face at how few pots and pans are in the cupboards. The light coming through the window is gilding his hair and his own brightly striped apron is pulled flatteringly tight around his muscled form. He's singing as he dices onions for his homemade chutney; Frankie Valli never sounded as alluringly, sincerely heartbroken as Eggsy does, or as ready to get back up and fight.

Eggsy looks up, startled, when Donnan leans in to kiss away his tears. "Just the onions, love. Innit, Daisyluv?"

"It should be you singing to the world, lad," he says, but Eggsy squirms and shakes his head. "Just for us, then," he says, jiggling Daisy. He takes stock of Eggsy's progress. "Even I can chop onions. Shall we switch, and have you put the little lass down with a lullaby?"

"What you think, Dais?" Eggsy asks, but she just squeezes Donnan's neck all the harder, so he can feel her beaded bracelet digging into his flesh. "Looks like you got your marching orders," Eggsy says, swatting his bum. "Sleep tight, Daisygirl. We'll have strawberries, as many as you can count, for breakfast." He turns back to the onions after kissing her nose and pretending to gobble at the longest of her curls, and Donnan has his arms full of a sleepy, happy child and his heart full of her brother.

*

"I know when my own birthday is, so where's the surprise in your showing up for that, my bonny eejit?" his mum says, standing on his front step at eight on Sunday morning. He's awake - Daisy keeps very early hours, rarely sleeping past six - but only just. He and Eggsy had made rather a vigorous night of it, and he's still pleasantly sore. "Are you blinking at me in code, wee man, or will you be letting me in?" It's the combination of shivering from the stiff wind plucking at his sleep trousers, registering the well-earned ache in his arse, and hearing the old familiar nickname in her voice that convinces him this is neither a very vivid dream nor a prank.

"Sorry, Mum," he says, stepping aside and taking the small suitcase from her hand. A thought occurs to him as he's bending to hug her and kiss her cheek. She can't only have the one bag if she's planning to stay at least through her birthday, one week away. "Wait," he says suspiciously. "Who's got the rest?"

"One of the twins," she says, waving a careless hand. "Can't tell them apart," she lies cheerfully. "The pair of them, and your sisters, all, well they decided a trip to London would be the better surprise than the pack of you descending on my wee house and all their ravenous boys eating me out of house and home." She's making her way to the kitchen, where Eggsy and Daisy are practising counting with every kind of fruit the shops could muster. Their voices are coming through clearly now, and his mum looks highly amused. "Well, Donnan lad, you have kept busy."

Catching sight of Eggsy, tousled and warm, with Daisy on his lap, Donnan is too dazed with happiness to answer her. She sweeps into the kitchen - insofar as a woman five feet tall and on the cusp of her eighty-fifth birthday can grandly sweep - and takes the seat opposite them with a smile. She and Daisy eye each other intently, and Eggsy is craning his neck to catch any signal Donnan can throw his way. "Mum, Eggsy, Daisy," is all he says before Daisy raises one small hand in a gesture Donnan now knows means peekaboo.

His mum doesn't miss a trick; she hides her face and plays peekaboo as if her last child were not a rational adult of forty-five, however much of an eejit he's being at her unexpected visit. Daisy evidently approves of her prowess at disappearing and reappearing, and between her happy squeals, Eggsy pipes up with, "Happy birthday, Mrs. Ivar."

"Oh, it's just Rose, lad," she says. "Or Mum, if you'd rather."

It's just his mum's style, gentle teasing and steady affection, but Donnan stops puttering with the tea things, feeling every muscle in his back go all tense; Michelle Baker has not gone gracefully into her rehabilitation program and has had some choice words for her son, reminding him on the phone a few days ago that he's not Daisy's parent, and that his past is as seedy and tainted as her own. Just the word "mum" must have unpleasant connotations for him now.

But Eggsy, his darling Eggsy, knows kindness when he sees it, and is quick to enter into the spirit of things. "I could be your truly unexpected blessing," he says, smiling shyly, and Donnan watches his mum cackle at hearing her own joke rebounded on her.

"Wee devil," she says admiringly, tone infectiously droll enough that Daisy gurgles and raises her arms. "Grandmum's privilege, then," she says, lifting Daisy off Eggsy's lap, "that I get to give this bonny lass the last of her breakfast. If I don't die of thirst, waiting for my tea." Eggsy laughs, keeping hold of Daisy's hand, and Donnan snaps to his task.

*

"Donnan," Eggsy moans - not in the good way - "make them stop. I literally can't move a single step in any direction in your flat or mine without knocking over some pile of toys or clothes or summat. I can't even believe _you're_ the sane one."

"Sweetheart," he says into the phone, guiltily glad he's not facing those accusing eyes right now, "they're just excited. First granddaughter -"

"First granddaughter in the family, I know," Eggsy says along with him, sounding more touched than he'll own up to. Donnan loves his stubborn, independent lad. "In the _family_ , not the whole bloody _world_." He sighs, and Donnan is hoping that that was a happy sigh rather than a frustrated one, or else he'll be getting a cold shoulder rather than a delicious sandwich when his order goes through. "Ridiculous, all of you. Jumping in feet first, diving in head first, whichever one means you're lunatics."

"I knew you were the lunatic for me the first time I met you," Donnan reminds him. Impulsiveness is an Ivar family trait that has served them well.

"I ain't playing this game with you," Eggsy says, suddenly retreating to higher ground.

"Because you'll lose?" he asks smugly. Let the lad be as lofty as he likes; Donnan's secure now in how much they feel for each other.

"Cause it ain't a game between you an' me," Eggsy says. "The knights can play whatever game they want, but I had my mind made up and they never even asked."

Donnan tries to get his throat to work when Eggsy falls silent. "I love you, Eggsy lad," he says softly. He wishes he were at home - his or Eggsy's, it never matters which - and touching his lovely lad right now. "I wish I were there with you now."

"Me too," Eggsy says. "Bet you'd be aces at digging out tunnels through all the gifts your entire mad clan bought Daisy." Donnan can't help himself; he laughs at the image, picturing the beady eyes that would be peering down at them if he laid Eggsy down in a trench carved out of the plush-animal menagerie that his family have made of Eggsy's unassuming flat.

"An' me too - I love you too," Eggsy says. The words have been said so many times that Donnan's heart should not still stutter to hear it, but it does. Eggsy's voice turns delightfully naughty. "Oh, got to go, just got a big order requesting delivery, signed Merlin. A _big_ order," he breathes, leaving Donnan too tongue-tied to say goodbye.

*

Galahad has done something - Merlin's not going to enquire too closely - to light a fire under Gawain and Bedivere, causing them to turn in reports on the accessories he designed months ago. Given the calibre of the knights in question, of course, the reports are as useless as the horoscopes printed in the paper, but at least now he can mark those projects as done and Chester can no longer badger him about them. Having handed over the reports, Galahad is lingering in his office, and Merlin supposes they are on their way to becoming friends, so he asks, "How are you?"

Harry shrugs. Merlin tries a different approach. Just because he finds James unbearable does not mean Harry must too, and James is hardly subtle about being the chief officer of the Galahad fan club. He tries to keep all judgement out of his tone. "Did you try Lancel-?"

Harry's sharp look cuts him off before it fades into another shrug. "It's ungenerous to assume that he'll fall into my bed as soon as I beckon - dangerous, too, if he scorns me like you did - but that's how it feels. Unsurprising. Unfulfilling. Perhaps the regulation is showing me that what I truly want is not a loophole, a clever twisting of the rules, but a proper challenge. To court someone without knowing the result in advance."

"Or to be courted yourself?" Merlin asks. Eggsy's words about making up his mind and no knight acknowledging he had a right to his choice just the same as anyone else are sticking with him.

Harry looks at him, surprised, then concedes the point with a smile. "I do hope your man knows how lucky he is," he says in that posh way of his that Merlin is beginning to suspect he simply does not know how to switch off. It would do Harry a world of good to genuinely stake his heart. Harry won't meet his eye, taking refuge instead in glancing at his watch and saying, "Ah, the lunch hour beckons."

Merlin's no longer surprised to see Eggsy, surrounded by knights, in the common room, but he is startled to see that he's convinced Roxanne to join him even though Percival's scheduled at the shop all day. Perhaps they have other deliveries to make that require her presence. She's holding the basket up so that Eggsy can delve into it to produce the knights' sandwiches, and Donnan is positive that she's positioned it in front of her chest as a defensive manoeuvre, clever lass.

"Got curry chicken for Ector, chicken and sweetcorn for Lamorak, spicy tuna for Bors, chicken and avocado for Bedivere, tuna and olives for Tristan, bacon and egg for Kay, chicken and bacon for Agravain, sausage roll for Gawain, pepper prawn for Geraint, smoked salmon for Gareth," Eggsy rattles off, matching knight to sandwich in a flurry of activity. The called knights seem torn between which baker to ogle. James, the bastard, is not so indecisive, staying well within Eggsy's immediate radius and flashing a smile full of straight teeth at him at every manufactured opportunity, even after his croissant is in his hands.

Eggsy nudges past him without a second look to smile up at Donnan. "For you, Mr. Sweet Tooth, I got something special from off the menu." The sandwich is wrapped in white paper, enough that he can't guess which of Eggsy's delicious creations awaits him. The lad is still smiling up at him, and it's a reflex now to kiss him when he's so close. Eggsy's mouth is half-open and his arms wind pliably around Donnan's waist. They just did this a few hours ago, before dropping Daisy with his mum and siblings instead of Jamal, and then going their separate ways to work, but Donnan is not above a little repetition, slave that he evidently is to muscle memory.

When he breaks the kiss, he realises the room has gone silent. Most of the knights are staring gracelessly, but it is Lancelot, with characteristically poor taste, who breaks the silence, drawling, "It _is_ called the service industry, after all."

Eggsy goes still and rigid, like small prey, and Donnan keeps his arms locked around him, willing him to take the comfort he's offering and remembering that Eggsy had wanted to be held the last time this happened, when it had been Harry's words - intimating that Eggsy could be had for the promise of a suit - that wounded. The other knights are starting to snicker, proving themselves exactly as terrible as Merlin's believed for years. They could have proved him wrong, just this once.

Lancelot keeps playing to his audience. "What's the charge for ordering off-menu?" he asks. "Pass the plate, queue starts with me." Donnan knows he's mostly joking, but Lancelot has no right to imply -

James falls with a heavy thud. Roxanne eases out of her follow-through stance and shakes out her fist. "My hero," Eggsy murmurs, twisting in Donnan's arms to drop a kiss on her sore hand, before subsiding and resting against Donnan's chest. Roxanne rolls her eyes and nudges Lancelot's prone form with the tip of her shoe not at all gently.

There's one sandwich left in the basket she dropped in order to avenge her best friend. Picking up the basket, she reads the words written in Eggsy's hand in marker across the white-paper wrapping of the sandwich. "Galahad?" she calls, looking around. "Roast beef with horseradish?"

"That's mine," Harry says, giving her his best smile as a spark lights his gaze. Roxanne, stepping disdainfully over the knight she felled, doesn't see it, but Donnan does, and he slides a speculative eye over to Eggsy, who is looking from his friend to Harry with an air of surprise, not altogether pleased.

To distract him, Donnan holds up his sandwich and bends to whisper in his ear, "Did you make that jam again?"

Eggsy immediately, endearingly, rolls his eyes. "I made your mum a big batch for her birthday, like you suggested. I told her it's up to her if she shares, and she said she loves me, wee devil that I am."

"As well she should," he says, "but I'm not fighting my mum for you. I loved you first."

Eggsy's eyes go soft and he sways into Donnan again. "Of course I made you more of your bloody jam," he says exasperatedly, punctuating the statement with a brisk kiss. "It's on your sandwich, and there's plenty at home, though probably buried under all of _today's_ gifts for Daisy." He looks away, shyly sheepish, while confessing, "And some more of that honey. Davie bought that for me."

"I'll help you dig," Donnan promises, letting the confession slide but memorising the shade of pink in the lad's cheeks.

"Course you will, you got a one-track mind." Just like that, he's back to the cusp of brazen, though too sweet to really manage it.

Donnan cups Eggsy's face and drops one last little kiss on smiling lips. "I've always known to focus on what's important." His own mouth is curling, without his permission, into a smile. "See you at home, love."


End file.
